inspiration, images & ideas from Push the Envelope Design

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Happy March world! We have had some crazy weather here in Virginia. It was 70 degrees over the weekend and then a quick batch of snow kept the kids home from school yesterday. I do love March, it is the gateway to Spring, my favorite season.

This winter and now, moving on to the spring, my daughter is working on a big undertaking. She is planning on joining a group of 17 students from her school on a two-week mission trip to Kenya. They will be helping with a group called E3 Kids at the Royal Kids School. A school that is in need of many hands, hours and dollars. The students will be helping to build a better kitchen to serve the 600+ meals that are made each day as well as working to build a library for the eager students. I put together this logo for the team to use in fundraising, Kenya Help – get it? (Sometimes you need to say these things out loud to giggle). There have been yard sales, pizza sales, babysitting and more to raise the $2,000+ each student needs to get to Kenya. There are car washes and t-shirt sales coming up, too. I am posting a link to a donate if any of you are interested in helping. Please feel free to comment with any encouraging words, those mean as much to her as the donations. Thanks for reading.

Considering the recent state of the economy, there seem to be a lot of small businesses popping up. I am optimistic these are businesses that will thrive since they are backed by tons of enthusiasm and lots of hard work. I am posting some recent logo designs of mine. I am always happy to get behind someone with a dream and a lot of drive. I hope these new companies will be around for a long time.

Really, who doesn’t love Adele? She is an incredible talent. A singer, songwriter, classic beauty. I have played the heck out of her most recent album and I am not even close to putting it away for a break. Enjoy this recent watercolor, feel free to print it out and enjoy.

Happy New Year everyone! I am still working on packing up Christmas. It is tough having my busiest weeks for my business running from Thanksgiving weekend through to Christmas. We got our decorations up a little late this year, so I am not too eager to pack it up right away. Just wanted to let all of you know I will get back into the Music Monday series. It was great fun & it seems lots of you like they paintings so far. We’ll see what is in store for next week. feel free to continue to send me suggestions here or via Twitter & Facebook.

Santa stuck some cute earrings in my stocking this year. I was happy to wear these babies all day on New Years Eve to bring in the good luck for 2012. {I think Santa did a little shopping at Furbish this year!}

Like many, I was so sad when Hüsker Dü broke up in 1988. I was a sophomore in college and their music was the soundtrack to so many of those days and nights. When Bob Mould’s solo album, Workbook, came out the next year, I was full-force into art school in Boston and he had me from the first glance of the cover. I was working on some Joseph Cornell-inspired box collages at the time and was taken with the similar artwork on his CD. Enjoy this little trinket. It is also the title of Bob’s recent memoir, I just finished it and have put it on my gift list for a few friends this Christmas. Feel free to click on the image and print your own. If you are interested in buying the original (approx. 4″ x 15″) just let me know. As a few of you have asked, I would gladly paint out a favorite lyric or quote for you. Maybe a wedding song as an anniversary gift? Favorite quote for a new apartment wall?

I am ready with week 2 of Music on Mondays. I was on an Oasis kick while working this week. They had their highs and lows as a band but always came through with clever and inspiring lyrics. I am also loving Noel Gallagher’s new solo songs. Feel free to click on the image and print your own copy. Email me if you are interested in buying the original watercolor. Cheers!

Voila – a new feature is coming to you today! I have loved listening to music for as long as I can remember. It started with The Carpenters – still love ‘em – moved on through the Bay City Rollers, Kiss, then on to Adam and the Ants, followed by The Jam & The Clash and it was all blown wide open for me after that. I listen to music whenever I am working, cooking, driving with my kids, whenever. This new series was inspired by a concert I went to last Friday night, Foo Fighters. I took my daughter up to DC for the night, and that is where this all came together in my head. Foo Fighters start off the series, amazing band, incredible show and really great songs. Each week I will be creating a custom watercolor with a set of lyrics that are fond to me. Feel free to comment and give me suggestions. I would love to hear some of your favorites. You can download these and print them yourself. If you are interested in buying the original just shoot me an email. I am so excited and would love to hear from you! I created this painting at the size of an album cover, 12×12.

Now that we are well into November get ready for the holiday invitations to start to fill your mailbox. Here is one I finished last week. This is an annual party, the family likes to stick with blue & green for the invitations, take a look at this year’s invitation.

Like many of you, we are prepping for the start of school. My kids have had 3 full days back. My oldest daughter and I spent some time this weekend customizing and color-coding her binders and notebooks. She is entering her Junior year – not quite sure how that happened because it wasn’t that long ago that her stuffed animal frog snuck off to Kindergarten with her…. but anyway, she is planning on a busy, busy year and wanted to get off to an organized & stylish start. We started by printing out a copy of a recent painting and fitting it into one of her binders. She loved that look so we manipulated the photo to create multiple color schemes for each class. Here are a few. Working with daughter #2 this evening to created her look. Enjoy & here’s to a great school year!

There is a trend going on with my custom orders this week. Take a look at this color trio. I am sure I will be working them into lots of holiday orders this season. It is Christmas-y while still being on trend with fashion & home decor.